When someone gives up a large part of their free time to help punters involved in betting disputes with bookmakers, a £20,000 settlement which hits a backer’s bank account a few days before Christmas should be cause for unalloyed celebration.
However, Paul Fairhead has mixed feelings about the latest five-figure payout he has helped to secure, more than two years after the dispute arose.
He is, of course, delighted that the backer involved has received has finally received £20,364 as a result of bets that he attempted to place in October 2017. But the case also arose as a result of Ladbrokes’ extended problems with “cancelled” bets, an issue which has cropped up regularly in this column since the autumn of 2018. It had also been inching its way through the system at the independent betting adjudication service (Ibas), for more than a year.
A final decision on the case was thought to be imminent, but as a result of Ladbrokes’ decision to offer a settlement in the case last week, it is now likely to be closed without a ruling. This means that a chance to set an important precedent, which could have had an impact on a wide range of disputes, has apparently been lost.
The Guardian has been reporting on Ladbrokes’ issues with bet acceptance procedures since November 2018, after dozens of punters reported problems when attempting to place bets which were referred to its trading department for approval.
The customers all reported a similar sequence of events, which involved getting a “receipt” for their bet with what appeared to be a unique bet or receipt number. Many also took screenshots which showed the balance of their account reduced by the full amount of the stake. The money returned to their account shortly afterwards, but was listed as having been “cancelled” rather than refused or declined.
It then emerged that Ladbrokes had reached out-of-court settlements with at least four punters who had started legal claims for payment on “cancelled” bets. Last December, Ladbrokes made further payments to an undisclosed number of its customers.
The firm also admitted a long-standing “technical glitch” in its software might have led customers “to believe that their bets had been accepted, when in fact they had not been placed and no stakes taken”. If Ladbrokes had hoped to draw a line under the issue, it failed. In January, news emerged of the Ibas case which has now finally been settled.
“Naturally, I’m pleased that Ladbrokes have acknowledged that the customer
did see bet receipts that indicated that the bets had been placed, and have agreed to pay after two years,” Fairhead said on Sunday.
“However, it’s also incredibly frustrating that there won’t be an Ibas ruling on the case as there was a really important principle at stake here, regarding the point at which a bet is deemed a legal contract.”
It is not difficult to share Fairhead’s sense of frustration, because the settlement of what is thought to be the last outstanding case at Ibas relating to “cancelled” bets leaves many questions unanswered. The Ibas case was one of the earliest disputes arising from the “glitch”, which seems to have caused problems over a period of at least nine months.
A former Ladbrokes employee, meanwhile, has also claimed that the bookmaker was aware of the issue for several months but did not address it immediately, due to concerns about possible effects on profitability.
It is still not clear how many customers were affected, how many have received payments on “cancelled” bets or, more worryingly, how many might still be unaware that they could be due a payout. It is also unknown whether any further cases relating to the same issue are or were outstanding at Ibas, or if these cases may have been settled by the bookmaker too.
The long delay in processing the Ibas complaint is also a serious cause for concern, not least if it has been caused in any way by foot-dragging on Ladbrokes’ part before it finally caved in and paid out anyway, thereby avoiding a final ruling. Ladbrokes has yet to respond to a request for comment.
One small glimmer of light for those hoping for an IBAS ruling on the “cancelled bets” issue is that Ladbrokes’ settlement offer is understood to fall short of the full amount which the punter was claiming by around £1,200. If the firm does not increase its offer to the full amount of the claim, the punter could still seek a full ruling.
“If anyone who has complained receives all that they claimed, we wouldn’t make a ruling,” Richard Hayler, IBAS’s managing director, said on Sunday. “If the offer was short by any measure, we’d ask the claimant whether they wanted to accept and close or push to a full ruling.”